“ With younger people who do not yet have those ( literacy ) skills as well developed and defined , a close and cohesive partnership with the parent is essential .”
At that last thought , I began to go back in my mind to my own early and mid-adolescent years , when cable television also offered both types of content . Like most people that age and at that time , I thoroughly enjoyed using the medium for both entertainment and to learn about the world well beyond my immediate reach . At a certain point though , I recall asking my parents for a television in my own room so that I could watch my sports in peace . Unfortunately for me at that time , my mother had attended a PA book talk by a leading child psychologist about raising children and teens in a world dominated by cable television . The author made a convincing argument against the merits of allowing children unfettered access and without parental oversight to cable television , especially in the privacy of their own bedrooms . The author dubbed the medium and the messages shared through it as the “ third parent ” who really “ gets , understands , and knows ” the young viewer . He argued that through television , pop culture helps raise the child and reinforces the values and virtues the children discover through it and begin to identify with . Unfettered access without at least some parental involvement would mean that the original two parents start out immediately on their back feet and unable to identify with what their child is thinking , feeling , or believing . creator ’ s intent , overarching themes , mood , tone , soundtrack , etc . It is important to actively engage because messages and information shared from an audio / visual medium are delivered in ways that are quite different from reading the printed word .
American author , educator , media theorist and cultural critic Neil Postman discusses this topic in one of his most seminal works : Amusing Ourselves to Death : Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business . Although he published the book in 1985 , it resonates as clearly today as then , if not more so . In it , Postman covers considerable ground on the history of communicating ideas through media ranging from the printed word to television . Before delving into television , Postman classifies the type of literacy needed when reading the printed word . The excerpt below , to use a parlance of the youth today , “ lives rent-free in my mind .”
“... almost every scholar who has ever grappled with what reading does to the habits of the mind has concluded that the process encourages rationality ; that the sequential , propositional character of the written word fosters what Walter Ong calls the ‘ the analytic management of knowledge .’ To engage the written word means to follow a line of thought , which requires considerable powers of classifying , inference-making and reasoning . It means
“ With younger people who do not yet have those ( literacy ) skills as well developed and defined , a close and cohesive partnership with the parent is essential .”
If a parent has an awareness ( i . e ., the child is watching television in the living room or den and the parent is within earshot ), then the parent has the chance to intervene when content or values are presented which are antithetical to those at home . Last , he argued that intervention and / or clarification is impossible when children absorb the messages and information on their own . Needless to say , there was no television in my bedroom during those years .
Thirty years later , the same challenge exists but through a different medium : social media . There is plenty of research , data , and analysis about its negative impact on young people , but what frankly surprises me is that the natural comparison to the impact of television is missing . Social media and television in many ways are inextricably linked by the way they share information . Both use video and audio in a sophisticated and intentional way . The lighting , music , background sound , camera angles , colors , props , clothing all play equal roles in the performance , along with the overt intent of the content . Each has a real impact on the mind of the user on a significantly deeper level than immediately known to him or her . With social media , I would argue that the third parent of pop culture has grown even closer to the mind ; that the dangers of television have jumped from the walls to the palm of our hands and are with us constantly .
As our brains digest and process the information received from audio / visual messages , we should approach it critically and actively analyze , like a novel , the work ’ s plot development , characters , the to uncover lies , confusions , overgeneralizations , to detect abuses of logic and common sense . It also means to weigh ideas , to compare and contrast assertions , to connect one assertion to another . To accomplish this , one must achieve a certain distance from the words themselves , which is , in fact , encouraged by the isolated and impersonal text . That is why a good reader does not cheer an apt sentence or pause to applaud an inspired paragraph . Analytic thought is too busy for that and too detached .” ( Pg 51 )
The audio / visual medium however is based on capturing interest , attention , and focus . Postman notes that television used the form of entertainment to achieve just this with its users . The whole construct was to keep viewers ’ glued ’ to their sets . Postman writes , “... television offers viewers a variety of subject matter , requires minimal skills to comprehend it , and is largely aimed at emotional gratification … American television , in other words , is devoted entirely to supplying its audience with entertainment .” ( Pg 86-87 ). Like the scroll through social media or the online world , the digital marketplace is packed with content designed to capture the user ’ s attention and time with the goal of having them follow . With clever edits , music , humor , and all the other tools in the content creator ’ s toolbox , amateur and professional content creators , influencers , and advertisers use social media to keep the users ‘ glued ’ to their smart devices .
One last clinching note from Postman , “ We face the rapid dissolution of the assumption of an education organized around
Winter 2024 • 5